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Dance The Golden Rule Typical Raver Gravy Roses The Scence The First Step and Happiness through Abstinence |
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DANCE
One of the oldest forms of human expression. Dance combines with Language and
Art to form the triad of abstract conceptualizations--no, don't skip this--that
distinguish humans from all other animals.
These abstract conceptualizations are interchangeable. Dance can be a form of
Language, as Language can be a form of Dance. Dance can be a form of Art, as
Art can be a form of Dance. And Art can be a form of Language, as Language can
be a form of Art.
This triangle perhaps best describes the core psyche of humankind when you substitute
the words for what they represent, and then combine their meanings. Hence, Dance
is attributed to physical expression, or the act; Language is attributed to
emotional expression, or the vibe; and Art is attributed to mental expression,
or the thought. Additionally, the merging of all three of these forces (Dance,
Art, and Language) brings about spiritual expression, or the belief.
The physical (Dance) tempered with the emotional (Language) produces Love. The
emotional (Language) combined with the mental (Art) makes music. And finally,
the mental (Art) tempered with the physical (Dance) results in Humor.
Now, with this intricate network of abstract conceptualizations in mind--and
Dance being one of its central tenets--it seems almost totally ridiculous that
any governing body would want to restrict such a form of human expression. Yet
that is exactly what they seem to be trying to do, even though it has not occurred
to them that preventing people from dancing is like preventing the sun from
rising in the morning. (Rave) www.ishkur.com
All over the world, there exists a simple precept that, when followed, has the power to end conflict and banish strife. It is the Golden Rule, a key concept in many philosophies and spiritualities that admonishes us to "do unto others as we would have them do unto us." Its meaning is clear: treat others only in ways that you would want to be treated. However, the golden rule is not always easy to follow. It can be a challenge to honor others as we wish to be honored. Yet, when we do so, we bestow a gift of loving kindness on our fellow human beings. And, in honoring others, we honor ourselves.
It is as uncomplicated a tenet as one could wish for. When we live by it, harming another person becomes nearly impossible. The Golden Rule is rooted in pure empathy and does not compel us to perform any specific act. Rather, it gently guides us to never let our actions toward others be out of harmony with our own desires. The Golden Rule asks us to be aware of the effect our words and actions may have on another person and to imagine ourselves in their place. It calls on us to ask ourselves how we would feel if what we were about to do were directed toward us. And yet this rule invites us to do more than not harm others. It suggests that we look for opportunities to behave toward others in the same ways that we would want others to act toward us. Showing compassion, being considerate of others, caring for the less fortunate, and giving generously are what can result when you follow the Golden Rule.
Adhering to the Golden Rule whenever possible can have a positive effect on the world around you because kindness begets kindness. In doing so, you generate a flow of positive energy that enfolds everyone you encounter in peace, goodwill, and harmony.www.dailyom.com/
1/06
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DISCLAIMER: Alright, this is not your story, this is not even my story, this might not be anyone's story, this is a compilation of stories, a generalization, if you would say that, of a path of your typical "raver". Not merely stereotypes, more a deep insight into how your sweet little kid, became a "partykid".
Ok so you're your typical high school student, maybe even junior high, as they
get younger and younger these days. You go about your life everyday in this
monotonous cycle that revolves around school. It dictates what time you go to
bed and what time you get up. It is your main source of social enjoyment as
well as of social frustration and contact.
For grades you have one of two options: You're a supergenius so you can either
do the work and study a bit and get straight A's, or you can do no work until
the exams come and just get by with a passing grade. Unfortunately, as we all
know, homework counts in high school. As far as extracurricular activities are
concerned, sports are for dumb jocks named Ox. You're smart but not nerdy enough
to join the chess team or the science club. If you participate in anything at
all, it is the drama club or music groups in the school. You don't do it because
someone said you should or because it looks good on a college resume. You do
it because music and arts are your two favorite things in life.
At this point your world is an unexciting and tedious road to the nowhere. At
some point, like your junior year or so, you have to decide what it is you want
to do with your life. The questions your ask yourself include Will I make enough
money? Will I be happy? Where will I live?, and What is the meaning of all this?
This calls your attention to the meaning of life and what you were put on this
world for etc. etc... As far as society is concerned, you're considered a social
outcast. You don't fit in. You're made fun of by ignorant sheep because you
are smarter than they are and because you don't comply with their ideas. But
unfortunately those people make up 75% of the world population and you realize
that in order to succeed you must eventually give in and comply with their ways.
All of a sudden, something dramatic happens that changes your life forever.
Maybe its your best friend dying, or your parents getting divorced, or maybe
the speech that your grandfather has been telling you all these years finally
registered in your brain. Whatever it may be, life suddenly becomes clearer
now. You understand how short life really is and up until this point, your actions
have been mainly geared towards the future and your life when you get older.
Now its quite possible that you might have no future and as early as tomorrow
you could be diagnosed with some terminal disease and die shortly thereafter.
If you did, what would account for your life, what did you accomplish, what
did you experience? nothing. Did you at least have fun, or leave a mark the
society, which you hated so much? Nope. You enter the rave scene because you
want to have fun while your still young and have the ability and lack of responsibilities
to do so. Also, you establish a connection with those people who have a similar
understanding, love of music and abhorrence of society as you do.
Now there are two paths of entry. The front door has a sign that says "Music"
on it, and the back door says "Drugs" on it. Unfortunately, more and
more ignorant little children are entering through the back door, giving our
scene a bad name. Regardless of how you enter, both doors lead to the same main
room where DJ Entropy is tearin' it up as some candykid is blowing vicks in
your face, showering you with bracelets, and claiming that they knew you in
their past life. The music and the people are what drive people out every night
until sunrise, the drugs are just an extra bonus or something that heightens
the experience, but they are not what the scene is all about.
Before this, you've smoked pot before and do it every now and then. You have
tried alcohol but couldn't figure out what the big deal was and its seems pretty
stupid in your opinion. Enter ecstasy, your first REAL drug. Who could resist
a pill that allows you to stay up all night dancing, breaks down social barriers,
and makes you feel free and one with the world. However, ecstasy does have certain
neurological effects. Even when you are not "rolling" you tend to
retain those e-clouded beliefs of the world if you start using it every weekend.
You go to a rave every weekend. You start buying into the commercialized scene
with your first pair of UFO's. You go to Satellite to buy the $40 ticket to
the asylum instead of records. Your Friday afternoons are spent making bracelets
and stealing vicks and blowpops from CVS. Your musical tastes have become narrowed
to progressive trance and happy hardcore. You've become CANDY. Don't worry now,
is just a phase, an outlook on life based on the neurological effects of continual
drug use.
Like most drugs, one builds up a tolerance very quickly. With ecstasy, it soon
becomes near impossible and very expensive for one to feel its effects, so you
give it up, and the scene as well for a brief period of time until you remember
what the scene is all about: the music. Then you return, this time being very
selective about the parties you go to, maybe only small clubs and outlaws. Illegal
house parties and abandoned warehouse parties are where it's at. However, in
order to be able to stay up all hours of the night you need some chemical to
put into your body. Once you've gotten over the fear of putting things up your
nose, it begins with crushed-up Ritalin that your friend with ADD gave you.
Soon you start doing crystal and glass, and then eventually cocaine. Similar
to E, they keep you awake, make you social and talkative, and most can help
you dance all night long. However they don't mess you up like E does, you don't
become an E-tard, and most people would not even know that you are on anything.
But just like E and other drugs, prolonged use cause certain neurological changes
that effect attitude, beliefs, and lifestyle. Almost the completely opposite
of ecstasy, you are very reluctant to meeting new people and the world seems
dim. You stick to the same small group of friends that you blow lines with every
Friday and Saturday night at someone's apartment as one of your friends is spinning
a set that you've heard about a hundred times. Your coke habit soon filters
into the week, as it is an extremely addictive drug both mentally and physically.
You need amphetamines to get schoolwork done, to get through your job, and even
to get up in the morning. When and if you do sleep, it's for long periods of
time like 14 hours or so. You go days with out eating and when you do eat something;
it just makes you sick. You might stay in your house for days because the world
sucks so much and you're tired of the same old shit from the same old people.
Your main musical interests are jungle, drum and bass, dark trance, and hard
house. You've become JADED.
Now what?. Reality knocks on your door one day and says "WAKE UP BITCH!
TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND". You can't go through life like this. The drugs
have to stop and you have to go back to the reality from which you came from.
Maybe you got caught selling. Maybe your parents found out about your crack-head
lifestyle. Maybe it wasn't you, yet. Maybe someone you knew died from an overdose
or suffered serious injury because of their careless drug-absorbed life. Whatever,
it was, it was an awakening. But how to do live on now, and cope with the evil
that is reality? It's hard, I know, I've been there. Your first inclinations
are to regress slowly, maybe start smoking cigarettes again. Try to remove one
addiction by replacing it with another. Ritalin, Prozac, E?, You've been down
that road before and you know where it leads. You know that eventually you will
have to sell your soul to the highest corporate bidder and they might require
a drug test. You have to grow up, become an adult.
Now remember that door that lead you into this rave scene? What did say? Something
about music and drugs? Here is where the sign becomes reality. If your heart
is true and you went in through the front door then the party in your head never
dies, drugs or no drugs. Or, if it was all about the nose candy for you, then
the party ends now and you forget about that part of your life like it never
happened. Like most, the music remains in our head and part of our lives forever.
This is the point when you can finally be able to separate those real friends
from those people that you just hung out with only because you liked to get
fucked up together and they didn't really love you, even those they might have
said they did a million times.
Now you are a retired raver. You have a good job or maybe working on your college
degree. Alcohol is now your drug of choice and weed is haven for sweet dreams.
Going out is still very limited to bars, clubs, and small house parties. And
you still like to wear baggy pants and polo shirts, when you do in fact leave
your apartment. You're tempted every now and again but soon even those temptations
disappear and those doing the tempting finally grow up as well. However, there
are few little things that you can't seem to get rid of, like the way you can
never look at a light bulb the same again. Cartoons are still the greatest thing
on TV. Orange juice is the breakfast of champions. Also, the way light flashes
seem to leave a trail for just a few nanoseconds longer than normal when it
is dark. But most importantly, every night, from now until the day you die,
when you lie down to sleep and your face hits that pillow, you can stop hearing
the eternal beats that reside in your head forever.
GV
8/00-10/00
So you ask, what is raver gravy?
It is that disgusting slop that appears to cover the entire floor after a big
party has just occurred. .For the most part, it consists of dirt, mud, sweat,
party fliers, candy wrappers, and empty water bottles. Oh yea, how could I forget?;
a million small empty baggies.
What makes the gravy so special ?
Because it is created by you and it follows you everywhere. It's all over your
shoes and encompasses the first three inches of the bottoms of your brand new
orange UFO's with matching reflectors that are suddenly a slight shade darker
after a hard night of abusing your body with illegal substances. With glowsticks
in hand, a pacifier in your mouth and pupils that seem to cover your entire
eyeball, your last living brain cell struggles for life and wonders "Do
I feel like dancing now"? After pondering hard for quite some time, you
stand up on the dance floor, an action you haven't been able to do for about
an hour or so. After standing up you begin to dust yourself off wondering "how
did I get so dirty, and where the fuck did it all come from?" At this point,
your last living brain cell dies off from such a strain while whispering…
"Raver Gravy", …as you dance off into the night.
Sometimes you have to stop and smell the roses along every road we walk upon.
Stop and lie in the rose-bed,
and you will soon be pricked by a thorn.
Ravers, punks, skins, rudeboys, swingers, indie-kids, hippies, and goths.
What do these terms mean to you? Personally, most of them could have been used
to describe me at different points in my life and most of them still do apply
today. But why do these scenes exist? What do they all have in common? And how
is it possible that people allow themselves to be grouped and stereotyped into
different categories?
Friends are important. When growing up, they are the best aid in getting through
life next to parents. You look for people that share the same ideas as them
and like the same things. You want people that were picked on in school because
you were different and didn't fit in. Related to this, each scene of people
sees themselves as separate from everyone else. They detest the rest of society,
blaming it for their hardships. You can recognize one of your members just by
looking at them. In crowd of total strangers, you search for one member, knowing
that you share the same ideas. Most see themselves as above the law and their
actions are based on what they think is right and wrong and not on what someone
else says. Most have absolutely no faith in the government. Some groups, like
punks, even band together and try to change it, but success is rare.
So how does this all happen? One word: MUSIC. Music makes it happen. Few people
are aware of actually how powerful music really is. It sets the mood; it can
calm us down, get us pumped up, and help us think more clearly. While listening,
musical sound waves have a direct effect on brain wave patterns. Therefore,
after constant listening of the same kind of music over and over, you can ultimately
change your brain wave patterns permanently, thus, changing the way you think.
This change is reflected in everything you do, how you dress, what you eat,
what you like to do for fun, what you believe in, and how you deal with the
reality that is society.
You weekends are engrossed with the ritual gathering of the people you see every
weekend in your scene at the local club, bar, or house for that matter. You
take in a performance or two of the music that brings you together from a band,
group, or DJ that you've seen a hundred times and know on a first name basis.
If dancing is acceptable in your scene, there is a fairly common dance that
you all conform to. Ironically, you conform to unconformity. Why? Because it
is easy and comfortable, and these are the people who you think are your "real"
friends.
If you ever see your scene represented or even mentioned on television or in
any other part of the media for that matter, it often extremely misconstrued
in a very negative matter. In some cases, there are even mainstream counter-parts
that claim to be members of your scene. Maybe they were at one point, but their
music is just a little bit different and MTV-friendly to the point where it
is just garbage that is giving you and your people a bad name. As more "negative"
awareness of your scene arises, the scene gets bigger. However, you know who
those people are and just claim to be "old school" because it was
what is trendy at the time. The trend will die soon and they will all go away.
You, on the other hand, will remain doing what you were doing before they came
because that is who you are and the music is what you love.
